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The impulses of my traitorous body followed me all day, had me cranky as a grandmother with gout… had me eyeing the bag of toys I’d brought. But I rejected the urge to fuck myself with a wooden dildo when there was a real knot I could have if I asked for it. A pair of knots if I was honest with myself.
“Dammit!” I screamed at a particularly offensive landscape which undoubtedly had been painted by a blind toddler with their feet.
I sat in the drawing with my sketchbook, charcoals, and a beastly temper, made worse by the too comfortable presence of Paxton sitting at a desk writing letters. Long letters. Letters so long I considered enquiring if he was penning a novel or an encyclopaedia. Neither fit his interests or character. The thought took me that perhaps his subject was artistic. His collection taunted me. I’d seen how vast it was, but remained ignorant of its contents. Caravaggio, that much I knew from our tryst. No. Assignation was an equally uncomfortable word. Meeting, too plain.
“Are you writing a treatise on art?” I couldn’t withhold the question any longer. “What other subject could hold your interest… To write such a very long time. I doubt you meant to irritate me with your presence since you were here first.”
He turned in his chair, a casual stretch revealing how distractingly long and powerful his legs were. Used to others towering over me, I often forgot just how tall those legs must make him. I glanced down at my sketches and winced. His figure, bent over his work, filled the page. Hands and profile both taunted me and forced me to meet his gaze. Somehow it was easier to confront his reality than my own unhealthy obsession.
“Methinks I might discover a compliment or two in that speech.”
“Take it how you will.”
“Then I take it as a compliment. See, we can exist in peace… We do not always need to be arguing.”
“Yet I think you enjoy when I challenge you. I’ve yet to meet anyone like you.”
“I can happily, easily, joyously return the compliment, then.”
Despite our history, my heart fluttered at his words. I had reluctantly enjoyed the last hour or so. The easy, companionable silence.
“You are just saying that because I shot you.” I narrowed my eyes. The devil in me spoke. “Why are you being pleasant? Do you plan to seduce me? Knot me here in my sister’s house?”
The way his eyes widened, darkened and took on a mercurial mirrored effect; the sinful deepening of his scent told me he had not been obsessed with any carnal longings. I was the culprit in revealing my own desires. The blame for his arousal lay at my door. Dammit.
“Vixen,” he growled. “Go now before I decide to be more alpha and less man.”
“My apologies. I consider myself warned.” I laughed nervously, more aware than ever that he was an alpha and I an omega who were deeply attracted to each other. Then scrambled out the window, for it was open and near and far too small for him to fit through.
Free into the garden, I realised that I’d rather walk on and find some less distracting subject for my sketches than return to the cool of the house.
At the second field, I removed my jacket. At the third, I unbuttoned my waistcoat. At the fifth, I sighted my goal. The great Ayleigh Oak. According to the housekeeper, the one on the South Lawn which I’d sketched a few days before was technically the child of this much more ancient but greatly diminished tree long past its prime.
My own history sat under the oak. Oh! I wanted nothing of these alphas, who made my skin feel hot and tight. Men who made sex ache and clench on nothing. I determined that I would tell Mama that I would go to Hertfordshire for my heat rather than pass it locked up in one of the guest bedrooms. The proximity of the knots these alphas offered would be too great a temptation. I’d give in and beg for them if we remained under the same roof… Perhaps Vi could throw them out.
I drew a great breath into my lungs and let it go.
“Good afternoon, omega. Come to join me?”
“It was not my intention… Why must you must be in my way? I’ve just escaped your other half.” The words were filled with all the frustrations I felt building up inside of me over the past few days. A coward would walk around the tree, sit where they could neither see nor hear the other person. But knew myself too well. No matter where I sat I’d be haunted by his presence. I’d wonder what he did if I could not see him, I’d wonder what he did if I sat too close. The compromise presented itself in the easy space between two large, gnarled roots. He observed me like a hawk as I sunk to the ground and took out my supplies.
“Do you wish to watch me?” I asked.
“You know very well that watching you sketch has always been one of my favourite pastimes.”
My cheeks grew hot and not because of the burning sun. Impossible to forget the times we’d spent together… As many years together as apart, and still I remember the intimacies of our quiet times. Longed to return to that time in my life with every fibre of my being. But I could not admit that. Not outloud. Not yet.
We sat in silence while I sketched, always conscious of the weight of his regard. Neither able to bridge the gap ten years had carved out between us. Gone was the innocent easiness. In its place a connection that recalled the way lightening crackled through the sky before finding its earthly target. My awareness was a physical thing; his gaze as tangible as if he were running a finger along my cheek, brow, and even lips. I hated myself for wanting his touch.
“Trix.” I jumped when he broke the silence. His grin only grew when I glared at him. “You must… I should say I’m proud of the woman you are. You’ve made a brilliant career for yourself. You’d not have had that opportunity if you’d been tied to a mate with nothing to recommend him but the ability to act as nursemaid to headstrong omegas.”
What had I to say to that?
“Have you read Rabbie’s latest poems?” I asked at last, unable to stand the silence. There had been a time when I’d never felt safer than with this alpha. Now I knew the danger he represented, but he drew me in with that odd familiarity mixed with the unfamiliar, which called to my curiosity. Nothing scared me more than that intoxicating combination. “I should leave. I interrupted your—”
“Stay, Trix.” Oh Goddess, the sound of his voice. Not the refined English one he’d learnt after leaving Edinburgh.
“O my Luve is like a red, red rose
